The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to separation of control and data subbands in unlicensed spectrum.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a wireless local area network (WLAN) may include an access point (AP) that communicates with one or more stations (STAs) or mobile devices. The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and may enable a mobile device to communicate via the network (or communicate with other devices coupled to the access point). A STA may communicate with a network device bi-directionally. For example, in a WLAN, a STA may communicate with an associated AP via downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) may refer to the communication link from the AP to the STA, and the uplink (or reverse link) may refer to the communication link from the STA to the AP. The uplink and downlink communications may convey information such as control traffic and data traffic.
In some wireless communications systems, control traffic and data traffic may be sent using the same frequency resources. For example, control and data may be sent over the same unlicensed subband. In such a scenario, there may be a temporal gap between uplink and downlink transmissions that provides time for associated wireless devices (e.g., APs and STAs) to prepare for the change in communication. Such gaps may result in an inefficient use of radio resources. Additionally, the data rates associated with the subband may be excessive for the amount of control traffic. In some cases, the subband used for both the control traffic and the data traffic may use data rates that are unreliable for the control traffic.